Although he first became aware of his pardon powers in conjunction with his hypothetical efforts to use them to his own benefit, Donald Trump has become enthralled of late with the notion of granting clemency to individuals with whom he does not share a last name and/or control of an offshore bank account registered to some generically-named LLC. On Friday, the president told reporters that his White House has assembled a list of 3,000 people who were "treated unfairly," and whose sentences are "far too long." And then, for no reason at all, he reiterated the most important assertion of all, which is that he has an "absolute right" to pardon himself.

Although the waiting Marine One prevented him from reciting the list in full, the president did drop one name that is apparently at the top of it: Muhammad Ali, who was denied conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War drafts and sentenced in 1967 to five years in prison for refusing to fight. (Thanks to five deferments, including one for a troublesome set of bone spurs, Trump avoided trouble with the law for his contemporaneous efforts to evade the draft.) Four years later, the Supreme Court overturned Ali's conviction in a unanimous decision, which means that, as a lawyer for his estate quickly noted, there is nothing for which Ali may be pardoned. Other than that, Donald Trump's plan is a very good and smart one.

For the most part, the people to whom President Trump has elected to grant clemency share one key characteristic, and in the commentary he attached to Friday's announcement, he couldn't have made his priorities any clearer.

I thought Alice [Marie Johnson, on whose behalf Kim Kardashian made a personal appeal at the White House last week] yesterday was beautiful. I thought Jack Johnson, which was recommended by Sylvester Stallone and and some great boxers—I thought Jack Johnson was a great one. I'm thinking about somebody that you all know very well, and he went through a lot, and he wasn't very popular then... Certainly, his memory is very popular now. I'm thinking about...

Here, he took a pause for dramatic effect, and lowered his voice to an appropriately somber tone before continuing.

...Muhammad Ali. I'm thinking about that very seriously.

Do you see it? Donald Trump doesn't know or care about the facts of any particular case. (The irony of his full-throated defense of a black activist persecuted for a gesture of peaceful protest is almost certainly lost on him.) Instead, his priority when exercising his pardon power is making people like him—either because the beneficiary is an oldfriend, or a celebrity, or has a celebrity in their corner, or has become so popular after so long that no serious person would argue against such a magnanimous gesture. He seemed genuinely surprised that his announcement on Friday didn't elicit a chorus of astonished, appreciative gasps. Did you not hear me? he seemed to be thinking. I said "Muhammad Ali." Don't you people love Muhammad Ali?

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There is no longstanding consensus about how a president "should" exercise their pardon powers, and some decisions will always be blatant exercises in self-dealing or partisanship. But I would submit to you that the power's highest and best use is addressing some of the countless injustices in this country that have not earned a famous spokesperson. President Obama granted clemency to over 1,700 prisoners, many of whom are minorities, and many of whom were serving draconian mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. This number fell far short of his rather ambitious goal of 10,000 grants. But he was motivated by a desire to do right by ordinary Americans, even if no one knew their names, and even if he knew he'd be excoriated by members of the conservative media—many of whom are now hailing Trump as a latter-day civil rights icon for, in effect, doing what famous people who agreed to pose for an Oval Office photo told him to do.

None of this is to say that Alice Johnson or Jack Johnson or Muhammad Ali, if he did have a criminal record, are undeserving of pardons. And I commend Sly and Kim and whoever else may have the president's ear for using their influence to do some good in the world. But a better way of measuring a president's character is observing how he treats less-powerful people—especially when he doesn't think the public is paying any attention.

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